Maintain your image when you meet your rival

Mumbai: What do you do when you have to meet with someone who’s been pitched as your rival or opponent, in a highly charged situation, with lots of people watching? Well, if you’re Nawaz Sharif and Narendra Modi, you smile and ensure your body language sends out the right signals. Not just these leaders, there are lessons aplenty to be picked up from the way certain public personalities have modulated their behaviour, say experts.

“It may look casual, but personalities like Modi have a very responsible role to play at public events and are, therefore, very careful about their body language,” says life coach and image consultant Chhaya Momaya.

Chhaya points out how, when Shah Rukh Khan and Salman Khan met at an iftar party, and later on stage at an awards ceremony, after months of reports about their famous “spat”, they made it a point to hug each other. “You may not see eye-to-eye, but it is important to acknowledge a person in the right way in public. Smile — it costs nothing! And handling situations with grace only means that you’ve grown up and know how to deal with various events maturely.”

Your body language in such situations is a clear reflection of your personality, says Bijal Mamniya, the founder-director of the Panache Image Consultants agency. She explains how certain non-verbal cues about your state of mind can be picked up through your gestures or expressions: “Eye contact, for instance, shows how much confidence you have or don’t. If you try to avoid meeting the other individual’s eyes, it seems like you have something to hide, and that is the last thing you want in a charged situation,” Bijal says. Other pointers: Ensuring you indicate your openness with the way you hold yourself — so no crossed limbs please!

You can also win some brownie points by indicating your willingness to step forward to meet the other person. Image guru Chetna Mehrotra says Mr Modi managed to get this right, when he extended his hand to Mr Sharif and projected a most “happy-to-meet-you” attitude. By contrast, Mr Sharif seemed a little more constrained and reserved. Chetna says there’s an important lesson here: “If the other person has made an effort to reach out to you — reciprocate!”

Chetna says mirroring your body language to the other person’s is a good thing in this regard. “These are the moments when you signal to another person, how interested you are,” says Chetna. So make sure you’re both “speaking” the same “language”.